h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A653384

This article introduces the print on-demand book publishing - that is, digitally printing books one at a time, as they are ordered by the consumer.

This practice has only been around since about 1997 and I worked for one of the companies that pioneered the process. I was closely involved in developing how the process could help authors self-publish and, with my colleagues, set many of the standards in the 'publishing services provider' industry.

In the past four years Amazon.com has added over 10,000 Print On-Demand (POD) titles to its listings, giving you an idea of how quickly this method of publishing is gaining popularity. POD companies now exist in the US, the UK, France, Japan, Russia, Spain and many, many other companies. It is an evolving industry with profound implications for the trade publishing industry (even Random House and TimeWarner Books have fledgling POD divisions).

I think The Guide could use an entry on this subject and I think I'm qualified to write it. What do YOU think?

I think this a fantastic, well written entry. I have the feeling that there a lot of would-be writers at h²g² that will find it very interesting.

Just one little thing if I you'll allow me my nit-picking opinion : I am not sure how relevant all the information about the printing processes ( digital and traditional ) are to the subject of the article. Surely the goal of the article is to describe specifically POD. All the stuff about the printing presses could reside in other linked articles.

cheers
j as alias...

Wonderful entry. One of the best laid out entries I have read here.

the same thing is possible for publishing your own music cd's.

the record company's just don't know what to make of it.

I think this is generally a great idea, not having major artists and writers having to subsidise lesser artists because the system works that way.

keep up the good work.

I would also leave the stuff about how the printing works in the article, as it is required for a comlete understanding of why the new system is so much better than the old one, or than trying to do the same thing from home.

Interesting stuff, well done.

Woo-hoo! Thanks everyone. This is my first h2g2 posting, but I've been a fan for so long that I'm very excited about your positive comments.

I have one vote for taking out the traditional printing info, another for leaving it in. I thought it helped to underscore the differences, but if more people think it is confusing, do let me know.

Thanks all,
Julie

An excellent first entry, especially coming from someone who claims to only know about conkers!

When you mentioned desktop publishing, I was reminded of the following text, from 1987:

"This book was written and typeset on an Apple Macintosh Plus computer and LaserWriter Plus printer using MacAuthor word processing software.
The completed document was then printed using a Linotron 100 at [a printer] to produce a final high resolution image of the text."

From the Author's Note prefacing "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", by DNA. Worth a mention, possibly? (not the whole thing, just the fact he was a great evangelist for the whole desktop publishing thing even before it was cool).

Good work!

H.

I'll stick my vote in for keeping in the traditional printing info. There are plenty of people who don't know about it, and I think it serves as a useful reference point.

Hoovooloo, thanks for the Adams quote. I wonder if he was part of the reason I found this stuff so fascinating.

And OK, I know about a couple of other things than conkers. Just not any of the things up for review. Or Physics.

Footnotes added.
And thatnks for the vote, Sho. The traditional printing stuff stays -with a footnote to explain to the reader why I'm dragging them through all this.

Footnotes added.
And thanks for the vote, Sho. The traditional printing stuff stays -with a footnote to explain to the reader why I'm dragging them through all this.

What do I think? I think that the guide needs an artticle on this topic, I Think you are qualified to write it, I think it´s very good already.
Some tips: Use the LINK tag "guide"-style, that is with a H2G2 ="..." instead of a HTTP="..." You can read about it on the page about the link tag. Layout style (ironically perhaps) still looks a little "first articlish" (as my only article also does

as to the footnote, don´t excuse yourself for explaining! There´s no need. I´ve read _much_ slower articles in the edited guide... try a search on "bach" (I believe it was) for instance.

I think it would be a good idea to talk with one of these Ace guys.

>Use the LINK tag "guide"-style, that is with a H2G2 ="..." instead of a HTTP="..."

Hmmm...I thought I'd used the LINK HREF=, as recommended in the style pages. Isn't that right? Most of my links are external except for the bio one. Can you clear this up for (dense) me?

Thanks for the comments,
Julie.

This is an interesting piece on a matter I previously knew little or nothing about.

A question about one of the links - I only tried the one to your own site and it took so long loading I gave up - do you have to have a superfast whizzy computer to access it?

A couple of small suggestions. As entries are meant to be in the third person, you might like to reword 'What I'm getting at here' to something like 'The point of this is' and the header including 'my book' to 'a book' or 'a particular book'.

Hmmm, sorry about the page not loading. Must be something wrong with my server. There's really not much to the page, just a few tables, lots of text and one banner image.

Are the editors really so strict about the third person thing?

Strict enough to ruin what I thought was a reasonably good punchline.

Compare this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A646922
from today's front page

with this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A650675
the original entry before the Editors had at it. Almost no difference, but...

Specifically, compare the final paragraph, and especially the final sentence. Which is better?

On the other hand, the editors DO make exceptions under certain circumstances. There's a brilliant entry entitled "My life with a cyst on my brain" - search for it, it's worth reading. First person, but there's no way it could be any other way.

H.

A wonderful entry.

Oops, I didn´t notice that they were external, sorry!

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'Print On-Demand Book Publishing'.

This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review Forum because your entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

You can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

May I be the first to offer my heartiest congratulations to jwordsmith on the occasion of her first entry into the Edited Guide.

Well done j!

H.